Today we drove from Franz Joseph town to Queenstown, supposedly 5 hours. We left at 9:00 am and arrived at 5:30 pm. We stopped along the way at views, and it rained off and on, never saw the sun. We saw the Fox glacier, rain forest, Tasman Sea (Pacific) . There are three places in the world where glaciers connect with rain forest. Two are at the glaciers Fox and France Joseph. The third is in Patagonia in South America.
Driving here is really interesting . New Zealand has 2 islands; we are on the south one. The major highway on the west...

Tour Day 7 was a cold, rainy day. Fortunately, it had been planned as a day “at leisure” to explore on our own all Queenstown had to offer. The only O.A.T.-connected event planned was an optional half-day excursion into the Southern Alps for a jet-boat adventure on the Dart River. Unfortunately, the weather was so miserable even this excursion was cancelled.
But Jon (our “Cookie Monster”) wanted to visit the famous Cookie Bar in downtown Queenstown, so after lunch we rode the hotel shuttle into town to see what we could find to do on a...

Seeing “all” of New Zealand in two weeks requires some flying, so on Tour Day 5, February 19, we took a 45-minute flight from Rotorua to Auckland (because there were no direct flights from Rotorua to Queenstown) and a two-hour flight from Auckland to Queenstown. We were greeted at the Queenstown airport by our new bus driver, Nigel, who would become a very important person in our trip.
Queenstown sits about two-thirds of the way down the South Island with a population of about 34,000 people in the region. While North Island is volcanic and...

Headed off to Queenstown on 29th Jan via Arrowtown and Glenorchy. Arrowtown is an historic gold mining town which was settled by mostly Chinese. There is a reconstructed 1860s community which was worth a wander around. Glenorchy is the other side of Queenstown but the AirBnB wasn't ready so we decided to drive straight through. Great scenery on the way but not much there to report.
Another great AirBnB with the best views yet! The weather so far has been fantastic but it looked like it was going to turn so booked a flight over Milford...

Day 22, Jan 29th
We flew back to Auckland then on to Queenstown. Queenstown is considered the adventure center of the South Island and for us it lived up to its name. We had two adventures. The first was a bus ride to Milford Sound, the gem of New Zealand. The trip was along two long beautiful long lakes and farm lands populated with sheep and cattle. Then went up through a high pass, through Homer Tunnel then on down to Milford Sound. (Milford Sound is missed named. It should be Milford Fiord) . Milford Sound was in full glory with its...

Spent the last week touring the south island with Wild Kiwi in a minibus with 13 other people.....and it was incredible! The group was an even mix of men and women aged 20-35 from NZ, Australia, America the UK and Thailand and everyone got on like a house on fire. The tour guide Mark was great fun and knew lots of "hidden gems" as we drove between our various destinations ticking off the South Island higlights along the way and our "hostel" accommodation was comfy and sociable.
We started the trip in Christchurch and I spent the night...

What a jammed packed day!
Woke up super early... 7am... and had breakfast. Met up with a few others at reception and walked to the meeting point for white water rafting! The outside air temp was about 8 degrees (I'm worldly now so I discuss in Celsius... F). We get to the base of the mountain to get fitted for thick wet suits. Wetsuit overall pants, thick wetsuit jacket, wetsuit shoes with socks, a waterproof jacket, and a lifevest. We jumped back into the van and drove about 40 minutes over the most dangerous road in New Zealand....

Ugh. Just a bit of a hangover. But nothing to slow me down. Today's my free day in Queenstown, so I grabbed a quick breakfast, and made plans with Lisa to go on a 2 hour hike called Queenstown hill hike. It was so steep! Took us over an hour to get to the top. But so worth it! The view over Queenstown was remarkable. The walk down didn't take as long as we were back at the hotel about 12. Lisa and I were starving after the hike, so we checked with anyone who wanted to join us for lunch and grabbed Fergburger (burger #2). Still delicous!...

Woke a bit early this morning... some of us scheduled a helicopter ride to the top of that glacier to hike around. Unfortunately, the weather during the hike was predicted to get really bad so they had to cancel the flight. Instead we did a walking tour to a lookout point for the glacier. It was still amazing how much power the glacier had in creating the canyon. We even got close enough to put our hands on the water that was melting from the glacier... it honestly felt colder than ice water! After the hike we jumped on the bus, and left...

October 1, 2017
First day of summer in NZ! Somewhat sunny morning and are hoping for a nice day full of adventure! Bathrooms are A++, even have wide rain shower heads!
Off to town and to our normal parking spot. ISite was able to book us on the Dart River Safari at 1:00 so we had time to ride the gondola. No luge, bungee jumping, biking don or eating. We had some spectacular views of Qtown, Lake Wakatipu, gardens etc. On the way back we watched the hang gliders land in the soccer field near where we parked. Packed some food for our 45...

September 30, 2017
I forgot to report last night that Bob finally found the elusive “old style” long sleeve, heavy cotton rugby shirt that we have been chasing all over NZ. We went to yet again another Champion Sport store on a lark and there it was. He soooo happy!
We also realized there are 2 Top 10 camps and the one we are staying in is the Shotover Top 10 about 6 kms towards Arrowtown. It is a VERY nicely situated camp, pretty much all new and very well stocked.
In the 30’s last night and we don’t have a floor heater in this rig as we...

September 29, 2017
Stunned ourselves by not awakening until after 9:00!! Beautiful, somewhat warm morning so we were optimistic by putting on shorts! Laundry etc. so did not leave camp until almost noon.
We are supposed to stay at Aurum Winery in town tomorrow night through okay 2 Stay but because of our trip reconfiguration will be in Queenstown. Stopped by and spoke with Lucy, the French winemaker, who said we could email and stay when we liked. She seemed very convivial and we look forward to our visit which will be whenever we decided...